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Wireless charging: Are we doing this or not?

The world is going increasingly wireless, with hardware manufacturers
left and right eschewing physical ports and cables for digital
handshakes and gigahertz connections. Just look at Apple's infamous
headphone jack-eliminating AirPods, for example. However, one plug that
device makers have continually struggled to remove is the one that
supplies the gadget with power. The era of wireless mobile device
charging has been "right around the corner" for the better part of a
decade but will Google's latest foray into Qi-enabled charging
technology finally be the popular push that brings wireless power
transfers into the mainstream?
Wireless charging works using the same physics principles that generate
inductive heating effects. Basically, you can generate an
electromagnetic field which, in turn, enables the transfer of energy
captured between metallic objects located within the field.

When you're heating a pot full of water, for example, you're simply
pulling electrical energy from the stove up to the metallic coil
imprinted on the bottom of the pot. This heats up the pot and boils the
liquid inside. Same basic idea applies to batteries. In that case, the
charger employs an induction coil to generate an oscillating magnetic
field. That field feeds energy into the target device's battery via
electromagnetic induction through a similar copper coil. Essentially,
it's the same as if you're pulling energy from the stove but, instead of
dumping that potential power into a pot of tepid water, you're dropping
it into a battery.

Pixel 3 charger

Google's efforts are far from the first time that mobile device
manufacturers have attempted to power their phones and tablets through
near-field energy transfers. In fact, the wireless charging revolution
technically started back in 2009 with the release of the Palm Pre. The
Apple iPhone 8 and X already offer wireless charging capabilities (using
the same Qi charging standard), as did the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 and 8,
the Sony Xperia XZ3, and Blackberry Priv with similar standards before
them. The problem, of course, is that none of the wireless charging
systems that have come before have met with much commercial success.
That could well change with the recent (re)emergence of the Qi standard.

Inductive charging does come with a couple of other drawbacks though.
For one, the process is slower than conventional charging, on account of
the massive amounts of energetic (read: heat) waste that the process
generates. That is, these devices get HOT when you leave them on their
charging pads for more than a few minutes at a time. Normally that isn't
a safety issue but then you find yourself on a commercial flight
holding a Galaxy Note 7 with 6 percent battery left and you've got
yourself a choice to make.

What's more, inductive charging doesn't work through metal currently.
That means that inductive-compatible phones must have either a glass or
plastic back in order to successfully access wireless charging stations
(hence the Pixel 3's new backside). The size of the inductive coils also
impact their effective range. Since the ones on a Qi charging pad are
generally only a couple inches across, their charging range is severely
limited. But even larger coils are prone to low power transfer
efficiencies -- typically only effectively delivering around 40 percent
of the total energy supplied (according to a 2007 study by, MIT physics
professor Marin Soljačić).

Yet, despite the technology's numerous, well-documented shortcomings,
there is still a solid chance for it to find mainstream success,
especially given Apple's stated support for the Qi standard. But whether
Apple pays anything more than lip service remains to be seen. On one
hand, both the iPhone 8 and iPhone X are Qi compatible, though such
charging accessories were noticeably absent from the company's most
recent product event. On the other hand, a sizeable portion of the
world's population had to go out and buy new headphones because of a
single design decision by Apple so that support carries weight should
the company choose to wield it.

Google, unfortunately, doesn't appear to have the social capital
necessary to shift the public's behavior in a similar manner. So if we
are doing this whole wireless charging thing, it'll most likely happen
only after it receives Apple's embrace.https://www.geezgo.com/sps/42437